


Sting Not So Sharp

by bubblebucky



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Hurt Lance (Voltron), Hypothermia, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Near Death Experiences, Panic Attacks, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 11:36:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12793722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblebucky/pseuds/bubblebucky
Summary: Lance falls down an ice rift, and no one can reach him. The process of freezing to death is not a fun one, nor is what comes after.





	Sting Not So Sharp

When Lance thought about dying, he thought about explosions. He thought about a lucky shot from a sentry, broken armor, blood gushing out in spurts between fingers. He thought about purple skin and torture and a thousand-year-old war.

He hadn’t thought about tripping into a crevice on the glacial planet they were visiting for a diplomacy mission. He hadn’t thought about his friends not being able to reach him down in the rift, about it being too dangerous for the Lions to help, about having to wait as they told him to hang out. He hadn’t thought about walls of ice on his every side sapping his strength away and leaving him shaking.

He hadn’t thought he’d be this cold.

“Not much longer, buddy,” Shiro calls from far up above, and Lance didn’t realize how much he’d been drifting until he jerks a little at the noise.

He takes too long to respond; Shiro calls his name again before he can manage to force out a feeble, “Okay.”

Up on the surface, Shiro and Keith and some of the locals of the planet—he can’t quite remember the name—make noises that sound more urgent than before, but Lance can’t quite make them out when they aren’t being shouted down the crack at him, and he can’t bring himself to ask them to repeat themselves. It’s not like he isn’t aware what they’re talking about. He knows that his situation is getting pretty dire, but he’s too tired to care about that.

He’s too tired to care about much of anything at this point, actually. Being cold is exhausting. The shaking of his body, the tenseness of his muscles, the rattling of his bones—it’d grown violent about an hour into his imprisonment, to the point where he was bruising his limbs with how hard he slammed them against the walls as he shivered.

When it had stopped not so long ago, he knew it was bad. But he’s still a bit relieved that the convulsions had ended, letting him rest for a bit and focus on breathing, because that’s getting a bit harder to keep doing.

His friends aren’t quite as happy with the change.

“Lance,” someone calls down, and it’s either Keith or Shiro—they’re faces are blurring together, and he’s too muddled to remember whose voice is whose. “Wake up. Say something.”

Lance wonders vaguely if they’ll get his body out if they know he’s already dead. He hopes they do; he wants his body to be buried on Earth, if at all possible. On the beach, maybe—they could cremate him and scatter his ashes in the ocean. Mamá would sing because she has the prettiest voice. He wishes he could hold her hand one last time—

“Lance!”

Lance’s eyes slide back open. He hadn’t realized he closed them. Someone called his name, he thinks. He should reply. But he can’t really feel his mouth, or anything else, and he can’t remember why. Above him, light interrupts the darkness in one crooked line as if shining through a small opening, and he can sort of make out two people looking down at him. One of them probably called his name. He doesn’t remember.

“Shiro, he’s not moving,” one says, distressed, and Lance blinks slowly.

“I know. Lance, stay awake!” This comes from the other of the two, and for some reason he finds himself wanting to do as they say, if only to please them. “Pidge, Hunk, where are you with the ropes?”

Lance’s eyes close. They open. There’s a weird light above him, cutting through the darkness in one crooked line. It’s like it’s shining through a small opening. There’s two faces staring down at him. He doesn’t know who they are, but they’re saying something to him, and Lance knows he should listen. Their voices are vague and echoing, drifting down to him like snowfall, and he blinks.

Someone is singing on his left. At first it’s muffled, like coming from another room, but after a few moments it grows more and more clear. He turns his face a bit, and it’s a woman, humming something familiar and indistinct. He doesn’t remember who she is. Lance tries to stand, but there’s not enough room. Instead he reaches his arm out numbly so she can hold his hand. She keeps humming, and Lance lets his eyes fall closed just for a moment.

He opens his eyes. Above him, there’s a light shining down like it’s coming through a small opening. He closes his eyes.

Someone is singing. Someone is yelling. He’s so tired.

There’s a light above him.

Lance closes his eyes.

* * *

 

Lance opens his eyes and immediately falls forward.

Someone catches him, and it takes Lance a few moments to realize that it’s Hunk, holding him tightly but tenderly against his chest. He’s shaking against Lance, and though he’s not quite sure what’s going on he understands that at least. Lance reaches up to hug him back.

“I’m okay, bud,” he says, going for reassuring.

Hunk chokes a little and squeezes him tighter, saying, “Don’t do that again. Don’t do that. I was so scared.”

“Okay,” Lance agrees easily—though to what, he’s not quite sure—and pats him on the back before pushing against the embrace, “Totally. Can I breathe now, though?”

Hunk releases him immediately, and Lance stumbles back, almost falling over before Shiro is suddenly at his side in support. Around him is the rest of the team: Hunk, clenching and unclenching his hands like he wants to reach back out for him; Keith, wearing the scowl that says he’s worried; Pidge with dark shadows under her eyes; Coran, who looks the same but duller, somehow; Allura with bright eyes. Shiro’s grasp on him is not quite as tight as Hunk’s was, but it’s just as desperate. Like a zap of electricity, Lance realizes that he must’ve been really messed up.

“So,” he starts, trying to keep his voice lighthearted. “What happened?”

“You don’t remember?” Shiro asks, the corners of his mouth turning down.

“Um,” Lance says, and he tries to think back to the last thing he remembers. Going on the diplomacy mission to Hol’uea, walking across the tundra, tripping… “Oh.”

He’d fallen down a rift in the ice. No one could reach him. Keith and Shiro kept calling out to him, Pidge and Hunk were off getting ropes so someone could go down there and haul him back up, but little by little the cold came and it stole everything away. His strength, his emotions, his friends, his mom. He’d forgotten them all. He’d been alone.

“Lance?” a distant voice says, and Lance blinks. They’re all looking at him. Lance doesn’t know who just spoke.

“Sorry, yeah, I remember.”

 _Now,_ he wants to add, almost hysterically, but instead he shrugs off Shiro’s grasp and takes a trembling step towards the med bay’s exit.

“I’m gonna shower, then nap,” he tells them—Shiro, Hunk, Keith, Pidge, Coran, Allura. “Apparently being cold is a lot of work.”

“Do you want me to come?” Hunk asks, moving towards him, and Lance sort of wants to say yes—sort of wants to beg all of them to come with him, just so he isn’t alone again, so he doesn’t forget them. But he’s a Paladin of Voltron. He doesn’t need someone to hold his hand.

So he says, “Nah, bro, but thanks,” and pretends like he can’t see them all exchanging looks as he goes.

His legs are shaking on the walk back, but they manage to support him the whole way. Once in his room, it takes him a few tries to unzip the skin-tight suit he wore in the cryopod, the trembling of his hands making everything difficult. He soon gets it, though, and practically throws himself in the shower, cranking the heat as hot as it goes. The water raining down on him is scorching and burns against his skin, but he’s still shivering. Full body, now.

For a long time he stands there, trying to remain aware of every part of himself. Eventually he closes his eyes and presses his palms against them, feeling a different kind of burning, but then he sees the back of his eyelids and remembers not being able to remember and snaps his eyes back open. The water cools down some—at least, enough so that he doesn’t feel like he’s being boiled alive—so he shuts it off and stumbles out.

“Shiro,” Lance says to himself as he shakes, “Hunk, Keith, Pidge, Coran, Allura.”

He’s so cold. Maybe something in the cryopod went wrong—it’s got something to do with freezing his systems, right? Maybe it messed up. Because he still feels like he’s down there, alone and empty and freezing to death. He puts on his thickest pajamas and wraps himself in all the blankets in his room. He’s still shivering.

“I’m okay,” Lance tells himself. His eyes burn, and he chances a blink. “I’m okay. I’m in the Castle. Shiro, Hunk, Keith, Pidge, Coran, Allura. Mamá.”

He can’t forget again. He can’t fall back into that peaceful, terrifying numbness. He can’t forget his mom again. He can’t.

He’s shaking out of his bones. He’s sweating. He’s freezing. Shiro, Hunk, Keith, Pidge, Coran, Allura, Mamá—

“Lance, uh, you in there?” A voice— _Keith’s_ voice—filters through his closed door.

Lance’s opens his mouth to answer, but his teeth are chattering too hard. The realization is horrifying, and he lets out a high whine.

“Lance?” Keith asks, louder, with a note of something panicked because he must’ve heard Lance’s cry. “I’m coming in!”

The door slides open. Keith sees him, shouts a curse, and crosses over to him in less than a second. His eyes are wide, eyebrows drawing together in concern, and his words are short and angry, because that’s how he gets when he’s worried, “What’s going on? Lance?”

“K-Keith,” Lance manages, staring at him. “Keith.”

“Yes?” Keith reaches out, then hesitates. He bites his lip. “Shit. I’m getting Shiro. Don’t fucking die.”

And Keith’s gone, leaving Lance alone again. The lights in his room are bright. It’s getting harder to breathe. He could still be down in that pit, and he wouldn’t know. He wouldn’t remember. Oh, God.

“Hey, kiddo, you have to breathe.”

Lance blinks and Shiro— _Shiro, Shiro, Shiro_ —is there, right in front of him. He must’ve lost time again, and the notion has him letting out a sob.

“You’re okay, Lance. I promise. You’re in the Castle.”

Shiro’s voice is steady, his face calm. With jerky movements, Lance wrenches a hand out from his pile of blankets and shoves it towards him, and Shiro doesn’t hesitate to take it.

“Shiro,” Lance gasps, and Shiro nods.

“Yeah, kiddo, I’m here, but don’t try to talk right now, okay? Just focus on breathing. In, and out. In, and out. You’re doing so good.”

Shiro’s hand is warm and calloused and bigger than Lance’s own. It must be his flesh hand, not the metal one.

“Everyone’s here. Hunk and Pidge and Keith. Coran and Allura are in the hall. You’re doing great, Lance.”

Gradually, Lance gets control of his breathing. Around the time he realizes he’s not, in fact, freezing at the bottom of a ravine, he realizes that he’s crying in the middle of his bedroom in front of his entire team. His face gets uncomfortably hot.

“Um,” he starts, after he manages to calm down, and Shiro jumps in.

“Are you okay now?”

“Yeah.” Lance shrugs. “Sorry.”

He’s still holding Shiro’s hand, he realizes, and quickly moves to let go. But as soon as he loosens his grip, Shiro’s tightens, and Lance looks up at him when he says his name.

“Lance, you don’t have to apologize,” Shiro says firmly, “You had a panic attack.”

He resists the urge to scowl, but his mouth still pulls into a bit of a frown. “Yeah, I know. It’s dumb.”

“It’s not dumb,” Hunk calls out from behind Shiro, sounding a bit defensive on Lance’s behalf, and Shiro nods.

“No, it’s not,” he agrees, and looks at Lance seriously. “You went through something very scary. You’re allowed to freak out.”

“I’m the Blue Paladin,” Lance argues.

“So?” Keith steps forward, jaw clenched, glaring down at Lance like he’s angry to be feeling anything at all.

“So—” Lance scrambles for a second, “I shouldn’t want someone to hold my hand, or—or cry because I got a little cold.”

“That’s a stupid argument.”

“I’m the Green Paladin,” Pidge says, a little hesitantly, but when Lance’s eyes land on her she seems to bolster. “I have nightmares about Matt and my dad.”

Lance frowns. “That’s different.”

“I’m the Yellow Paladin, and I throw up a lot because I’m scared,” Hunk says. “Sometimes I have to come over to you at night to sleep.”

Lance shakes his head, frustrated. “Yeah, but—”

“I have to sleep with a nightlight,” Keith blurts. “Because I think I’m still alone in the desert.”

“It’s okay to not be okay,” Shiro says gently. He reaches out with the hand not currently holding Lance’s to ruffle his hair. “I have flashbacks sometimes. I’m still the Black Paladin.”

For a moment, Lance doesn’t say anything. Then, “I forgot all of you.”

Shiro makes a comforting noise in the back of his throat, and the other three move closer. Hunk sits on the edge of the bed with Shiro, Pidge crawls up and presses up against Lance’s side, and Keith hovers above them all.

“It was so cold, and I was all alone, and,” Lance’s lip trembles and his eyes well up, “I thought I was gonna die there. I couldn’t remember any of your faces. I forgot my Mamá.”

Finally, finally, Shiro tugs the blankets off of Lance and then tugs him closer until he’s snug against him. Pidge wraps her arms around his waist and presses her face into his shoulder. Hunk scoops them all up, and tugs Keith in when he flounders. Lance cries—they all do, actually. And really, the whole group hug is moist and crowded and a little uncomfortably warm after a bit, especially with Lance at the center of it all.

But he’s not cold, and he can’t forget them when their elbows are jabbing into his side uncomfortably, or when their food-goo breath is fanning across his face. Shiro still has their hands clasped together, a bit sweaty now, and Lance closes his eyes.

This time, it’s easy to remember all the people who care about him.

**Author's Note:**

> hey just by the way I got the title from that shakespeare poem "Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind" and I'm still amazed by how perfect the line is for this fic. thank


End file.
